Fishy Find: Woman discovers live parasites in store-bought salmon

A Valley woman made a stomach-churning discovery while unpacking her groceries: she found live worms crawling in the packaged fish she had bought at a local store.

The disgusting discovery has one valley mom staying away from fresh fish and meat for a while.

Just two hours after she got home from the grocery store, she pulled the packaged fish out of the refrigerator to cook it. That is when she noticed the tiny, parasitic worms wriggling around inside the salmon, underneath the wrapper.

The Peoria mom of three was getting ready to make a meal for her family Sunday evening. She noticed something fishy in the fish she just bought and caught it on video.

"Getting ready to do my food prep and these little worms underneath the packaging, you could see these little worms going in and out," said Jennifer Chafitz.

"It was clearly under the wrapper; there were some more that were down in there, not coming out, just gross... I was absolutely mortified, and disgusted, I felt like things were crawling on me, and it was gross," said Chafitz.

That same day she went back to the Fry's grocery store on 67th Avenue and Happy Valley Road in Glendale and alerted store employees.

"And he looked at it, and he said, we'll that is part of the fish. And I go, that is not part of the fish. And he goes its moving, so then he took a closer look," she said.

A manager apologized, gave her a refund for the fish, and a $5 gift card to Fry's. A reaction that left her disappointed.

"That they don't care, that it's just another face, another person to push through. I didn't make a big scene about it, it's not about the money for me, it's more about making people aware and getting them to put something on the shelf we can feed our family," said Chafitz.

According to seafood experts, parasites are natural occurrences in fish, and they're not hazardous to humans when the fish is thoroughly cooked.

Fry's officials say they're aware of the incident and say they will let their supplier know.

FOX 10 spoke with a manager at the store, but they would not comment on whether or not other packages of fresh fish or meat had been inspected or pulled off store shelves.